NY Times Reports on Brooklyn Scene
by 
dklein on March 10th, 2008
Following in MTV’s footsteps, The New York Times had a piece yesterday about the Brooklyn music scene. Check it out in full here, but here are some highlights:
A nice little recap of why music out of Brooklyn is cool:
“For rock bands this is a great time to be weird and independent in Brooklyn. After years in which the sound of New York was defined by various shades of retro monochrome — the new wave minimalism of the Strokes, the disco-punk of the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem, the moody Anglophilia of Interpol — a new generation is making music that is indefinably eclectic and complex, and finding acclaim around the world.”
A nice little recap on why indie music is indie:
“But with the music industry in crisis, and alternative rock particularly hard hit — the genre lost 19 percent of its sales last year alone — fewer and fewer such acts are being signed by the majors. Instead many choose to remain in the indie world, largely free from the commercial demands of the mainstream. And one result has been ever more diverse and experimental music.”
A nice little recap of all the “hot” Brooklyn bands right now:
“To name just a few stars of the class of Brooklyn ’08: Battles, specializing in devilishly convoluted yet playful grooves; Dirty Projectors, led by a Yale music dropout equally virtuosic at punk guitar and classical orchestration; Grizzly Bear, with its layers of haunting, psychedelic harmonies; High Places, a primitivist male-female duo; the punishingly noisy Psychic Ills; Gang Gang Dance, with its polyglot sound collages; and Dragons of Zynth, who borrow some of the swirling atmospherics and cutting post-punk guitars of their mentors, TV on the Radio.
Even the more pop-leaning new bands are adventuresome. Vampire Weekend, the three-fourths-Brooklyn group that is the breakout indie success of the year, updates the clean lines of new wave with touches of African guitar. And MGMT, the odd group out that signed with a major label, recorded its spacey, catchy album “Oracular Spectacular” with Dave Fridmann, known for his work with the Flaming Lips. (Both Vampire Weekend and MGMT, along with Yeasayer, High Places, Psychic Ills and hundreds of others, will be at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex., next week.)”
A nice little recap on why indie bands don’t sell:
“The New York hipster mystique, it seems, hasn’t played well in the all-important marketplace of suburbia. “When you’ve got too much of a New York tag on you,” said Steve Ralbovsky, a veteran record executive, who signed the Strokes to RCA and now runs an imprint at Columbia, “it may endear you to places like Tokyo and London and Los Angeles. It may not endear you so much to other places in the country.””
And finally, a nice little recap on why indie bands don’ t care about sales:
“But lower sales can also be a boon for the art. Without the pressure to make hits and repay large advances to record labels, groups have been liberated to experiment: an art-for-art’s sake situation that has been good for both musicians and audiences. “The community that I come out of is just interested in doing your own weird art project,” said Mr. Longstreth, “not making something saleable. You probably couldn’t sell something with this music.”
He paused for a moment, then added, “And that’s not a dare.””
And there you have it. Your guide to Brooklyn indie music. Thanks New York Times!
Tags: Brooklyn, Dirty-Projectors, dragons-of-zynth, Gang Gang Dance, grizzly-bear, High Places, indie, interpol, LCD-Soundsystem, MGMT, MTV, new-york-times, Psychic Ills, the Strokes, the-Rapture, TV On The Radio, Vampire-Weekend, Yeasayer| 2.5 |
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